"How much money did the San Diego County Office of Education Joint Powers Authority pay to Stutz, Artiano, Shinoff & Holtz...between January 1, 2001 and January 1, 2006?"

Shinoff/Ward Response: Your request does not appear to be a request for records, but an overbroad interrogatory. As such, JPA does not possess a document that satisfies your request.

Maura Larkins response to denial:

Interestingly, when I previously asked SDCOE for documents showing how much Shinoff was paid by SDCOE, Shinoff's associate Kelly Angell created pages and pages of new records that did not contain the information I requested. Stutz law firm makes sure the truth is hidden no matter how a public records request is phrased.When I previously requested the documents of contracts between Shinoff and SDCOE, I was told there weren't any. This may be true. At a recent Grossmont Union HIgh School board meeting, superintendent Terry Ryan said Shinoff has a "gentleman's agreement" with the JPA.

If that doesn't sound like a backroom deal, I don't know what does.

Maura Larkins response to denial:

The public has a right to this information, Mr. Ward. I'll keep working on rephrasing the request until you provide the information.

Randy Ward had Daniel Shinoff write the letter below, in which Shinoff, on behalf of Ward, refuses to turn over information. Randy Ward won't tell how much the San Diego County Office of Education Joint Powers Authority paid Daniel Shinoff from 2001 to 2006.

Also, he won't tell what insurance companies the SDCOE JPA does business with.

I'm glad the Lack of Trustees are actually going to look at the attorney fee bills to see what they are billing the district for.

School Attorney Fees/Public Records

San Diego County Office of Education keeps secret how much it spends on lawyers

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They monitored the site every day for around 20 to 45 minutes per day. At $175 to $250 dollar per hour, you figure that payment out. When they decided to sue me for defamation, they brought out Mr. David Feldman himself! You KNOW that cost a pretty penny! That's probably the additional $175,000 that Der Commissar wanted the Board to approve. And the Board should have approved it. They were the ones who agreed to have Feldman threaten me. New GISD Train Conductor Andy Mytelka gave a little spit and vinegar speech himself. And O'Neal gave his famous "Train" diatribe!

They have no one to blame but themselves.

The other big money maker for the attorneys is review of every single Open Records Request that comes through the door. The only reason a district attorney would need to review every single Open Records Request is to prevent certain information from making it into the hands of the public. Take our latest request for signature cards for every bank account the district has. Not only was that request reviewed by the attorneys, but the Lovely and Talented LeAnne Bram Lundy, has asked the Attorney General not to make them give it to me! Why you ask? Because they do not want us to see how many bank accounts they have and how they shift money around from one account to another. And I suspect that they do not want the Board Members to know about the accounts either!

Here's the deal about Open Records Requests: The request can only be for something that already exists that they can make a copy of and give to you. You can not ask for them to create a report for you. So I couldn't ask for a list of bank accounts from them. They don't have to produce anything for me. So I asked for a copy of each signature card for each bank account.

Now, assuming they even know where there money is, this is a simple matter of copying each card. It's our money, we should be able to know where it's kept. The actual signatures, driver's license numbers, social security numbers, and other personal identifying numbers may be redacted from the copy. That's already part of the Open Records Law. I only want to know how many accounts we have and where they are. They are supposed to change banks every couple of years, also.

This exact type of request is routinely submitted to school districts across the state including Friendswood ISD. FISD routinely provides these cards via Open Records Request to requestors. The Attorney General has already ruled on this issue several years ago. It's a done deal. The district must provide them to me.

But, either to throw me off or give the district time to move money around, the Lovely and Talented LeAnne Bram Lundy wrote the following letters to the Attorney General:

Feldman to AG No Sig Cards Letter 1

Feldman to AG No Sig Cards Letter 2

I've had some Open Records Request experts review my situation and here's what they say:

"Your request for the bank authority cards was on December 6th. When did GISD inform you that they were asking for an A.G. opinion? The law gives them ONLY ten working days, which means that unless they actually WROTE to the A.G. by then the information is AUTOMATICALLY deemed to be public! That's the law (Texas Government Code 551 and 552 are open government law). If GISD did not compose and mail their request to the A.G. by then, the information is PRESUMED to be public and after that period has elapsed, GISD must now show a compelling reason that the information should not be released. In other words, if they miss the deadline, their burden becomes greater. Not much in the way of consequences for stalling, is it?"

"On page 2 they cite "OR2002-7018 and OR2001-3659". These are informal letter rulings and I could only frind the 2002 letter on the A.G. website. You should think about calling Hadassah Schloss, Cost Rules Administrator, Open Records Division (512-475-2497) and see if she can help you find the letters. Open letter rulings apply ONLY to the specifics of the letter about which they are written. They do NOT have the weight of an Open Record Decision or an Opinion. F&R know this."

"I will be astonished if the AG gives them permission to withhold these documents based upon their cited references. I could not find 552.143 or 552.147, but the first six subsections that they cited are totally irrelevant. If the Attorney General had any cahunas he would chastise them for wasting his time (and yours)!"

So, you can see two things:

1) The district tries very hard to keep damning information out of the hands of the public; and

2) The attorneys LOVE this because it makes them a LOT of money!!

Again, when will the School Board wake up?

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In the above letter, Ward and Shinoff propounded technical legalities as an excuse for keeping information secret.

However, when requests have been worded differently, Shinoff has used another favorite excuse: attorney-client privilege.

The public is supposed to be your client, Mr. Shinoff. The public is paying you. Why do you advise public servants to harm the public? Why do you feel a need to keep this information secret, Randy? Why do you feel the need to cover-up for Dan Shinoff and Diane Crosier?

The January 12, 2007 letter at right was written by Dan Shinoff and sent to Maura Larkins. Since the text is hard to read, important passages have been re-typed below.

When we received a copy of a fee bill last Spring, it was a redacted copy which was in direct violation of a State of Texas Attorney General's Open Record Decision.

However, it was with this bill that we found that GISD was paying at least 2 different attorneys to monitor gisdwatch. Yes, your tax dollars PAID for GISD attorneys to monitor what we are saying on this site. Not that they weren't curious and that many in the administration building read the site occasionally.

"The names of all insurance companies currently doing business with or on behalf of the San Diego County Joint Powers Authority."

Shinoff/Ward Response: Your request does not appear to be a request for records, but an overbroad interrogatory. As such, the San Diego Office of Education Joint Powers Authority (JPA) does not possess a document that satisfies your request."

San Diego Education Report

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San Diego Education Report

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Galveston, Texas has the same problem as San Diego regarding public records and school lawyer attacks on blogs: